Plotting Experimental Data Files

You can read and plot experimental data files in both Console Mode and Graphical Mode.

See the Tips and Tricks: How to Plot Experimental Data blog post on our website for useful guidance about this topic.

Graphical Mode

In Graphical Mode, the Experimental File Reader activity can only be created from the top My Project node. This activity allows you to read an experimental data file (*.EXP). This type of file has information specifying a plotted diagram, written in the DATAPLOT graphical language. From this activity node you can plot the EXP file or save a copy of the file to another location.

  1. Right-click My Projects node icon My Project and from the Create New Activity submenu choose Experimental File Reader.
  2. In the Configuration window in the EXP file field, enter the name of the EXP file to plot. Or click the Select Exp file Button: Reload Exp file button to navigate to a location on the computer to add the dataset.
  3. Once the .EXP file is added, under Dataset Selection you can choose to include or exclude specific datasets. Use the Select/Deslect all datasets checkbox as required.
  4. Right-click the Experimental File Reader node and from the Create New Successor submenu choose Plot Renderer.

    If the source EXP file is changed, you can also click the Reload the selected EXP file from disk Reload the selected EXP file from disk button to refresh the data. If you want to save or export the loaded file, click the Save EXP file Save EXP file button, then navigate to where you want to save it and give it a file name.

  5. In the Configuration window click Perform or right-click the Plot Renderer node and select Perform.

Console Mode

In Console Mode you use the Quick Experimental Plot command found in the POLY-3 POST module (as well as in the Diffusion Module (DICTRA) POST module) to plot the .EXP files. This command can be used when there is no graphical information to be plotted in the POLY3 workspace. It defines a pair of axes, sets the axis labels to X and Y, and scales both X- and Y-axes between 0.0 and 1.0 unless a prologue is read from the DATAPLOT (*.EXP) data file.

  1. Go to the POLY-3 Module: At the SYS prompt type Go Poly.
  2. Go to the POST module: At the POLY_3 prompt type Post.
  3. At the POST prompt, type Quick.
  4. Enter Prolog and Dataset numbers (if applicable). See QUICK_EXPERIMENTAL_PLOT.
  5. AT the POST prompt, type Plot.